most important week of this campaign. two final debates starting tomorrow. right now both candidates are preparing for the rematch. as the clock ticks down to election day, time is running out for both men to make their case. there are two polls out. they show this race is a virtual tie nationally. president obama took about half an hour away from debate camp to look at volunteers yesterday. he did not joke about how debate prep is a drag. >> how is the debate prep going? >> it is going great. >> mitt romney took time out of practice to go to church with his wife ann. he is riding high last week. that's something he worked into a stump speech. >> now about a week ago i had a debate and i did enjoy myself. it was a great opportunity for the president and for me, for both of us to talk about our respective points of view. >> i want to bring in the grie owe's political editor, perry

bacon and matt welch. guys, good morning. >> good morning. >> president obama says -- at least we're hearing from his folks he's going to be more assertive. he's going to be more aggressive this time around. here's what robert gibbs said yesterday. >> he also knew as he's watched the tape of that debate that he's got to be more energetic. i think you'll see somebody who's very passionate about the choice that our country faces and putting that choice in front of voters. >> so, matt, what kind of adjustments does the president need to make. >> i think he's going to be doing a lot of fact checking in real time. the administration and the campaign has been foreshadowing a lot of this. not going to let things go by that we think are inaccurate. i think you'll see more interjections, along those lines. i think the real thing they need to do is stop the benghazi bleeding, which is a political hit that i'm not sure the campaign really understands that the rest of the country is looking at how the administration has dissembled the benghazi attacks the last

month. i think that mitt romney will be hitting at that hard and so might some of the voters in the town hall. >> besides the overall importance of the national debate, michael sheer of "the new york times" has outlined a couple of things that he says are crucial. twitter, number one, the spin room, advertising. bottom line, perry, do you have to kind of create a narrative, talking points in your ads, and of course in that spin room that works for the rest of the week? >> absolutely. what you saw in the debate on thursday particularly was the republicans immediately why all saying joe biden is smirking, he's smiling too much while the democrats said joe biden is being forceful and being tough. i think you'll see that kind of contrast. it depends on how close the debate is. in the first debate between mitt romney and obama viewed romney as better. but if this secretary ond debat close, interpretation will be important. if a voter asks a question,

those are things that will be important to watch. what's said in twitter early on will help people define what they think about it. >> you have to look at it in the context of where we are now in this campaign. politico released its ten battleground states, romney leads 50 to 48%. colorado, florida, ohio rk virginia, wisconsin. is the romney comeback just part of a longer narrative, matt. is it something that helps going into this debate? does where we are really play into what voters think. >> i think he's had the best two weeks of his cam pain by far. he's had those two weeks and he's gotten to where it's finally almost a tie. he needs to keep the momentum going otherwise there will be a lot of narratives. the wave has crested and it's turning towards obama. >> we all know ohio, ohio, ohio.

it's a critical state where mitt romney is spending a lot of time. here's what his debate prep partner said who knows a little bit ohio about that state. >> he can probably win the presidency without ohio but i wouldn't want to take the risk. no rech can has. we're doing great in ohio. if you look at the average of all the polls, it's dead even in ohio. the momentum is on be our side. >> a new poll has the president up by five although romney has been gaining. what's at stake for him in this debate, perry? >> i disagree. you've seen three polls. nbc had one last week, cbs had one last week. the race is getting closer. the president has an advantage in ohio and every survey that i've seen, two, three points, etc. that's really important. no republican has won the campaign without winning ohio before and as long as obama has an advantage there, that's really important and could make the difference on election day. >> let me bring in senator john

borasso, republican from wyoming. good to have you here in new york. >> thank you, chris. >> so we saw how quickly things could change as the result of one debate. mitt romney's numbers are up. his likability is up which is something that he lagged far behind the president on. could it switch back just as quickly? >> well, tomorrow's debate i think is going to be even a larger audience watching because of how poorly the president performed in the first debate and how well mitt romney did. there's going to be a lot of interest in this. the energy and enthuse see a. is clearly with mitt romney and the romney campaign. you'll see 90 minutes tomorrow. these men have records for all of their lives. the president's record is raising taxes, increasing the debt and not bringing back the jobs that he promised. >> to that point, let me go to chas changing for the president which is people feel better about where the country is headed. we saw the unemployment rate come below 8% which took away a major talking point for mitt romney. home prices are rising. foreclosures are at a five year low.

there is a shift. 42% say the country is now headed in the right direction. that's 13 points higher than it was a month ago. is this why we're hearing frankly so much about other things besides the economy from mitt romney's campaign? >> additionally 56% in the same poll say the country's heading in the wrong direction. if you're president of the united states you'd prefer to have more people thinking that the country that you're leading is heading in the right direction. i think the president will do well tomorrow because he does well in town hall settings. i think mitt romney is also going to do well as he talks to voters individually about his efforts to bring back 12 million new jobs. we have 23 million americans who are either unemployed, un underemployed now. i haven't heard a plan with the president what to do with it. this record has been miserable for our country, our economy and for people who are looking for work. they still haven't been able to find it. >> there's another big issue and matt brought this up. that is libya. that has been in the news for

more than a month now. something that will probably come up tomorrow night. here's what eelize gentleman cummings had to say about it yesterday. >> we have not heard from anybody who was actually in libya the night of the event. we've heard nobody that was in benghazi therefore in the night of the event. i think it's turning into a witch hunt and we can do better. we really can. >> elija couplings says it is a witch hunt. he says their economic message has not been working. is that right? >> that's not right. i was in the top secret briefing with secretary of state hillary clinton and the top leaders of the administration ten days or so after the 9/11 attacks. to me it seemed like they were trying to hide something, that there was either incredible competence or a cover up. i have great concerns when you look at the time line of what happened, the requests for

additional security that had been rejected, what happened that night and then the president saying even in his u.n. speech six times saying it's because of a video. the problem is this was a terrorist attack against our country and this administration doesn't want to errantly want to admit it. the reason i believe they're doing that is because it flies in the face of what the president says when he says al qaeda is on the run. they're alive and well and attacking the united states. >> we have heard from the beginning, we've even heard it from the candidate himself, mitt romney has said this is about jobs. this is about the economy. that's what this election is going to turn on. >> at home in wyoming, i was there this weekend. i hear about jobs, the economy, debt and spending. this issue of national security and libya is coming up because there are so many different answers being parsed out by this administration. i think that, you know, when the vice president on thursday night said, well, we didn't know that they needed more security, well, in sworn testimony the day

before the administration testified in congress that, yes, they did know that there were requests for additional security. so there are too many different stories that are out there and it just seems they don't have a story straight. the american people just want to know what happened. >> senator john bourrasso, thank you for coming in. >> appreciate it. >> let me bring our panelists back in. it has been a month since the attacks in libya. the administration is still getting hammered over libya. here's what lindsay graham said yesterday. we don't have that sound. let me -- well, we do have it now. okay. i was going to read it for you. >> it's exhibit a of a failed foreign policy. i've seen this movie before. i went to iraq in 2004 and everybody told me, things are going fine, this is a few dead enders. iraq was falling apart and couldn't get the truth from the bush administration. the mid east is falling apart and they're trying to spin what happened in libya because the truth of the matter is al qaeda is alive and well.

>> so, perry, does the president somehow have to straighten this out tomorrow night? >> i don't think tomorrow night he will. we mentioned one thing, the next monday's debate is a foreign policy debate that will be done with a moderator asking questions. then i think the president will really be pressed on the issues. tomorrow's debate is where voters are going to be asking questions. voters will be asking the questions, not the moderator. i think they don't know all the details of exactly what happened in libya enough to parse this point and this point. >> don't you think it's out there enough that a question could be asked? candy crowley, who's going to be moderating the debate, has made it clear she's going to ask some tough follow up questions. she certainly knows the details. don't you think it's to the president's advantage to let it go another week? >> i think he'll address it tomorrow. i think the specific questions where he'll be asked over and over and over again will be next monday. tomorrow will mostly be about the economy. no, this is not a great issue for the president. they don't have a clear story about what exactly they knew

when they knew it. they need to figure that out over the next few days to prepare for monday's debate. >> let's talk a little bit about, matt, about the debate. it's one thing to talk about the questions and it's another thing when you're facing a room of real people and i wonder if that changes how the -- not just how they respond but what they can get away with essentially. does it look worse for them if you don't answer a question directly that an american is asking you? >> it's interesting when you hear from the campaign about what they're practicing. they're practicing body language with voters. mitt romney is trying to figure out, okay, do you address the voter? do you walk up to them? some of it is the worst part of american politics. it's every state of the union address has the personal anecdote. hey, stand up and clap and this kind of thing. >> pay attention to the first lady. >> it's part of the phoniness

but within that phoniness there are moments available when an american who is not a journalist, who doesn't cover a beat, who's not trying to flatter anybody can ask a question that is tougher than what we all come up with. that can be an interesting moment. i think we'll be looking for those kind of piercing little moments. i think we might get one on benghazi because, yes, it is out there in the culture and the administration. the administration has been very, very bad on this for a month now and so i think someone might try to ask for a specific question and the president better be prepared to answer it pretty directly. >> matt welch, perry, thank you very much. we want to remind you if you did not hear this yesterday, former pennsylvania senator arlen specter being remembered as a moderate who wasn't afraid to cross party lines. he died at his philadelphia home yesterday from complications of nonhodgkin's lymphoma. once called snarling arlen, he spent 30 years in the senate.

then he switched parties in 2009 saying he was increasingly at odds with the gop's philosophy. he lost that race. he voted in favor of president obama's stimulus bill. his funeral will be tomorrow in penn valley. it is open to the public. vice president biden plans to attend. fire roast these tomatoes. this is going to give you a head start on your dinner. that seems easier [ female announcer ] new progresso recipe starters. five delicious cooking sauces you combine with fresh ingredients to make amazing home-cooked meals. to make amazing when you lost the thing you can't believe you lost.. when what you just bought, just broke. or when you have a little trouble a long way from home... as an american express cardmember you can expect some help. but what you might not expect, is you can get all this with a prepaid card. spends like cash. feels like membership.

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live look right now. wisconsin. there's paul ryan holding a town hall event at carol university. a little later on today he'll be stumping in cincinnati, ohio. round 2 of the debates tomorrow night but over the weekend sat night live used arianna huffington to use analysis of martha raddatz's performance at the vice presidential debate. >> martha raddatz said answer this question and answer it this

way. women have to do that. you don't say to your husband, maybe we should go out next weekend. no, you say, hey, we're going to dinner friday night with my sister and her husband. be ready by 7 and shave the back of your neck. >> cnn's candy crowley takes the baton next for a town hall style debate. in a rare moment of unity, both the obama and romney campaigns today expressing concerns over suggestions by crowley that she'll assume a broader set of responsibilities than were agreed to by both camps. let me bring in leslie bein see more's more magazine. why doesn't she and not the audience get to ask the questions. crowley is the second to do that. veteran journalist carol simpson was the first one in 1992. good to have both of you. good morning. >> good to be here.

>> the "more" magazine article suggests that you and candy, you are the vanna whites of debate moderators. why are guys getting the more influential jobs? >> i think it might have something to do with the fact that the commission on presidential debates is made up mostly of men. i think of the 17 members, only two are women. i would have to think if more women were part of the commission, that more women would have a bigger role than we have now. >> well, and the commission on presidential debates wasn't always in charge. leslie, the article points out, that for a long time, i this i it was '88, it was the league of voters. >> if you're not the the table, you're probably on the menu. that's the problem here. women should be able to ask the questions just the way anybody else does and there's a lot of controversy coming up about candy's remarks, that she actually wants to take hold of some of the questions, ask follow ups. there's quite a brouhaha about

that. >> yeah, let me ask you a little bit about that, carroll. now the campaigns are upset because candy said after the initial question which comes from these voters that are going to be in the audience, she's going to follow up and drill down. well, the commission says that's vastly different than the memo signed by the candidates. what's going on here? >> well, i think she's been listening to me a lot. >> yeah. >> because i was very upset that women were reduced to the vice presidential debate and to the town hall format, which does not give a woman the chance to ask the questions. the public, the voters that are going to be there tomorrow night asking questions have very basic questions about their neighborhoods and crime and their schools and so on and i'm sure candy might like to ask, if it doesn't come up, more questions about reproductive rights for women. i was going crazy the other night when martha was an hour

and 15 minutes into the debate and there were no questions about women's reproductive rights being perhaps set back. and so finally she got that, but it was very quick. these people have not -- these gentlemen have not been held to account for the things they have said about abortion and contraception so i can see her wanting to say, hey, if these people don't ask it, i need to ask it because it needs to be asked. >> one thing we will say about martha raddatz, it certainly was not jim leher style. she got right in there. for people who didn't see it or don't remember it. let me play a couple of quick clips. >> do you have the specifics? do you have the -- do you know exactly what you're doing? >> look at what mitt romney -- look at what ronald regan and what tip o'neal did. we want to work with the congressmen how best to achieve this. >> no specifics.

>> no specifics. no specifics. no specifics. is there a broader message we're getting here, leslie, about women in the workplace? >> well, in general, we want women to be present everywhere. it took those girls, they had to get 100,000 signatures just to get a woman even on the agenda for these debates. i think in general if women are not part of the discussion, that is terrible for all of us because we do have slightly different points of view. and i'm hoping that candy's going to go out there and slug a few for the women and do what tom brokaw did. he caught a lot of, you know, debates for the way he steered questions in a town hall format. i think she should follow what he does. see what the guys do. come up swinging. >> number one -- i know you've been talking a lot about this, carole, what's your number one piece of advice for candy? >> i would like people to know that she is probably under tremendous pressure right now. >> unbelievable, right? >> from the commission, from the

campaigns saying, hey, you've got to stick by the rules. and i feel for her. i think she is going to be intimidated by the political parties that have so much control and by the campaigns who say, hey, you've got to do what we've told you to do. so the question is will she break rank? will she go rogue, as i called it. >> leslie? >> i'm hoping she'll go rogue because the men don't play by the rules. women, you you don't have to play by the rules anymore. >> "more" magazine editor and carole simpson, it's great to have you both on the program. come back please. >> thank you. >> illinois congressman jesse jackson jr. is reportedly now under a criminal investigation. "the wall street journal" reports the fbi is investigating if the congressman misused campaign money to decorate his house. the report says the fbi is almost done with the probe. so far no comment from jackson's

spokesman. he has been on medical leave since june. nps brought to you by empire today.

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to politics now where president obama will appear on the daily show thursday. the same day former president bill clinton and bruce springstein will campaign for him in parma, ohio. the president is also weighing in on the big "american idol" feud between nikcki minaj and mariah carry. he told the radio station, you know what, i think they are going to be able to sort it out. i am confident. he says he knows both mariah and nick cannon but has my rye a on his ipod. >> first of all, i want to thank centre college for hosting us this evening. >> oh, boy, here we go. >> four years ago president obama made a promise.

>> with all due rerespect, thiss a bunch of malarkey. >> a bunch malarkey? what does that mean? >> it's irish. >> irish is, no, i come over there and smack that dumb look off your face. we've seen mitt romney using a phrase from the tv show friday night life on the campaign trail. >> he exemplified a saying that i've heard since, which is clear is, full heart, can't lose. >> well, the show's creator told the hollywood reporter, it's plagiarism and wrote a letter to the campaign saying, quote, please come up with your own campaign slogan. your politics and campaign are not aligned with the themes we portray in our series. if you read only one thing this morning, president obama's white house designer, michael s. smith has now done the interiors for a two bedroom apartment in mid town manhattan with lovely views of central park. the price for that two bedroom,

$50 million. get a look at what that kind of money buys you in my must read. a lot of pictures. it's up on our facebook page at facebook/jansi facebook/jansing and company. phillips'. is a thrilling, dual-flavored ride to mouth fun-town. but it's not like everyone is going to break into a karaoke jam session. ♪

this will literally probably never happen.

people call him old, moderate mitt. they're raising doubts about mitt romney's shift to the center. they say look no further than what he said during the primary and what he's saying now. >> do i believe supreme courts should overturn roe v. wade, yes, i do. [ inaudible ] >> i don't -- there's no legislation regarding -- with regards to abortion that i'm familiar with that would become part of my agenda. >> let's bring in democratic strategist, jamal simmons and former republican congressman from virginia, tom davis. good to see you, gentlemen. good morning. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> congressman davis, let me start with you.

how do you explain the difference in tone we're seeing in mitt romney over recent be weeks? >> in a general election, you're not in a primary. you'll emphasize different issues to primary voters than general election voters. that's normal. secondly, there's no contradiction versus overturning roe versus wade versus overturning the agenda. you have a presidential agenda and you have a president who has to react to legislation put before him. really two different questions. but i think they're on the wrong tact if they go after romney now as being a flip-flopper. he can't be a far right guy and a flip-flopper. they're going to have to make up their mind and go after him i think one way or the other. >> are they essentially two different questions? is the campaign, do you think, jamal, trying to make too much of this? >> you know, i don't. i think where you are -- what governor gran who will am said yet on "meet the press," it's more like mitt romney the joeg january horse. he's hiding inside of his

moderate shell. he's trying to infiltrate the government with these positions. i am severely conservative. he said that he -- we saw the clip on abortion. now he's saying that, you know, he would have his exceptions. there's not legislation that he would think about. we have the same problem with the tax cuts. he says there's no $5 million worth of tax cuts. the problem is the math on his economic plan don't add up without these tax cuts and whether or not they're going to lower the deficit. there's all these positions he has which don't quite seem to make sense. i think the president's going to have to really lay into that tomorrow night. >> well, you know, i think that congressman davis obama's senior advisor robert gibbs is also jumping on the idea that mitt romney is trying to hide his conservative views. let me play for you what he said yesterday. >> sure. >> people in these battleground states understand that mitt romney can walk away from his positions in a 90-minute debate but they can't walk away from the campaign and the record that he's established.

>> so essentially using the -- >> is this going to be an issue tomorrow night, do you think, at the debate? >> let me say, if you looked to president obama was going to close guantanamo, he was going to allow the bush tax cuts on the wealthy to expire. he flipped on all of those issues during his tenure in the office. it goes with the territory. but when the president had an opportunity to challenge romney directly on these issues in the last debate, he failed to do so which i think gave romney more credibility. now he has his surrogates out there attacking him. it will be up to the president. but i think it's going to be point, counter point. >> is it an expectations by voters that frankly often poly tiv shans change their stripes and especially for a republican who's gone through a very difficult primary where they tend to skew conservative and they move towards the center? it's happened before. >> that's what people used to be able to do, i think, in the old days before youtube and camera phones and all of these things that are now in everyone's face

at every moment. i think even going back to somebody like bill clinton in 1992 who ran a campaign that was sort of always about the economy, always about health care. even talked about welfare reform during the democratic primary. people didn't think that was smart. you've got to find a way -- this campaign ultimately is about strength and leadership. i do think mitt romney looked strong in the last debate but he hasn't been showing the leadership. he hasn't been taking the position that people agree with and stand up there and say this is what i believe whether you agree with me or not. that's what people want to see from him. it's been all over the case. it will cause him some trouble. >> jamal simmons and former congressman tom davis, thank you. also making news this morning, a 14-year-old pakistani girl shot by the taliban is now on her way to the u.k. for treatment. nbc news has learned that she will be treated at a hospital in birmingham in a special ward for personnel hurt in afghanistan. she's listed in serious

condition. two taliban members shot her last tuesday while she was on her way home from school. she has been fighting for girl's education since she was 11. pretrial hearings start in guantanamo bay today. the self-proclaimed master mind of the 9/11 plot. relatives of the victims have been invited to watch on closed circuit tv in four states. as expected, there are more confirmed cases of that rare form of meningitis. 205 of them now with 15 deaths. the outbreak has reached 14 states. the disease has been linked to steroid shots that came from a massachusetts pharmacy. it looks like americans may be loosening their grip on their wallet. the commerce department says retail sales rose by 1.1%. people bought cars, gas, electronics. part of that came from apple's new iphone as well as higher gas

prices. for those of you who asked for more time to file your taxes, today's the deadline, people. taxpayers with extension sz need to file by today even if you can't pay the full amount due, otherwise you'll get nailed with a late filing penalty. some military members serving overseas though still have a little extra time to file. scientists are studying this historic 23 mile jump from space that may have implications for astronauts and high altitude pilots. yesterday daredevil sky diver felix baumgartner stood at the edge of outer space. look at that when he's turning. scary stuff. over the new mexico desert making that supersonic jump. for over four minutes he fell. at times though he got himself out of it. he landed safely. and broke the sound barrier in the process. watch this. just like nothing. we missed the end of it. trust me, he landed great. also on solid ground, space shuttle endeavour wowing the crowds. the shuttle that once orbited

the earth at 17,000 miles an hour moved at just about 2 miles an hour to its final resting place. the california science center. look at how tight that is. this final voyage was not without controversy because a lot of environmentalists were upset the city had to cut down trees and some other obstacles to maneuver the shuttle through the streets. you could be in for a refund from amazon. cnbc's mandy drur ri is here. >> i got an e-mail over the weekend that said i might get 30 cents a little more than that. what's going on? >> if you own a kindle from amazon, as obviously you do, you may receive refunds on peas ebook purchases and you may see those ebook prices drop if they have legal settlements with publishers that are accused of fixing prices. there was details on how you could receive a refund of about 30 cents to $1.30.

if approved the settlements would limit those publishers to set future ebook prices. it should lead to lower costs for kindle users. >> on a very different topic. brad pitt is selling perfume now. >> he is indeed. he's joining the ranks of others such as nicole kid man. it's the same as chanel's number 5 fragrance. he is the first man in history to represent a woman's fragrance. let's have a listen. >> wherever i go, wherever i are, my luck, my fate, my fortune. chanel number 5. inevitable. >> okay. so basically any excuse, right, to get brad pitt on the show there. chanel says he was the obvious

choice because they say there is no actor alive that compares with him. his talent, his popularity, and his looks are legendary. they say in the same way there's no other perfume that compares with chanel number 5. back to you, chris. >> what do you think of that? i would expect a little more, i don't know, tuxedoish. james bond? >> i didn't think it was sexy enough. i know chanel wants to look more elegant and timeless, but i didn't feel it was sexy enough for my liking. >> he looked pretty good i thought. yeah, all right. i knew i'd get a laugh out of the floor crew with that. thank you very much, mandy. >> thank you. want to know where the ultra, ultra, ultra rich live? here's cnbc's countries with the most billionaires. number five, india. 109 billionaires. germany is 4, 137. then the u.k., 140. china has 147 billionaires, but number one, the united states of america, 480 billionaires.

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president obama: i'm barack obama and... i approve this message. mitt romney is going on an ad spending spree. pro romney plan is going to flood swing states. they'll spend more in october than they did in september. today both sides are out with new ads focusing on the economy. >> we have a whole new shift. we have a future. >> when you look at the president's plan, i don't think there can be any question that we're on the right course. >> president obama does get what people need, and that's jobs and the opportunity to help themselves. >> the economy is barely limping along. don't raise taxes on small businesses because they're our job creators. leaders run to problems and fix problems. mitt romney is uniquely qualified to fix these problems.

>> i'm joined by bob man, chair of mass communications at louisiana university. good to see you. >> good morning, chris. >> let's talk about the obama campaign ad we just played. real people talking about what they see as a real recovery. what's the impact, do you think? >> well, i think that ad is aimed at a lot of voters who were somewhat shaken somewhat by obama's performance in the first debate and it's trying to shore up -- at least to me it's aimed at people that were a little concerned about obama. shoring them up, trying to reassure them that obama is on the right track. i'm impressed by that tag line at the end, forward. i think that implies that if you go with the other guy, you're moving backwards. we don't want to go there. >> "jansing & co." just got a list of the top ads from the past week from visible measures. number two on their list with more than a million views is an rnc ad featuring a laughing joe biden. let me play that. >> it's never too early to speak

out for our values. they keep misquoting him but let me tell you about the mitt romney i know. don't raise taxes on the small businesses because they're our job creators. >> is that effective? >> well, i think it's aimed at perhaps more the republican base than swing voters. i think the difference between those obama ads that i've seen that are airing today, they're aimed more to me at swing voters. these ads are aimed more at trying to zero in on biden's demeanor and trying to make people believe that the obama administration wasn't serious about the debate and is not serious about deficit reduction. i'm not sure how effective they are. i really think if they want to attack obama, they want to attack obama and not biden. i don't think biden's performance is going to be what determines the outcome of this election. >> over the weekend they had an

ad featuring actor morgan free man. let me play that. >> every president inherits challenges. few have faced so many. four years later our enemies have been brought to justice, our heroes are coming home, assembly lines are humming again. the last thing we should do is turn back now. >> here's my take on that ad. see if we're on the same page here. i saw it and i thought, you know, there's so many ads out there. my family and friends who live in battleground states are done, frankly, with them, but when i hear morgan freeman's voice, i stop and listen. i don't know how much star value, you know, really works, if george clooney endorses you, but does an ad like that have power? >> i think it does. that is one of the best ads i've seen from the obama campaign in this election. not only does it have morgan freeman which i do think calls you to look up and listen, but i think that ad is very reminis

reminisce reminiscent. it's reagan's morning in america. it sets up voters that this president has faced challenges. it says the same words that morning in america did. why do we want to turn back now. >> let me bring up now ad number one of the past week. it is the obama campaign's big bird spot which visible measures says has been seen by nearly 4 million people. take a watch. >> big bird. big bird. big bird. >> it's me, big bird. >> big, yellow, a menace to our economy. mitt romney knows it's not wall street you have to worry about, it's sesame street. >> i'm going to stop the subsidy to pbs. >> mitt romney picking on our enemies no matter where they nest. >> now the romney campaign has tried to turn that. over the weekend mitt romney took a jab at the president over that ad. >> his campaign keeps getting smaller and smaller as he talks about big bird and so forth and our crowds keep getting bigger and bigger. >> so my question is, could this

really persuade people to vote for the president or do most people watch it because, frankly, it's entertaining? >> i think -- i don't think they think they're going to persuade a lot of people with that ad. i don't think they put a lot of money behind it. it's been seen a lot on the web and they aired it on s"saturday night live" on this last saturday. they see it as a way to gig mitt romney. >> bobman from lsu. great to see. you thanks very much. today's tweet of the day comes from someone who wants it to be all over. i would like to see a town hall debate with all of the undecided voters and then we could lock the door and let the rest of us vote. ale announcer ] e-trade technology can help make you a better investor. our e-trade 360 investing dashboard shows you where your money is, live. e-trade pro is so usable you'll actually use it. and our apps are the ultimate in mobile investing. become a better investor at e-trade.

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>> some of the hotly contested congressional campaigns are getting downright nasty. take the race in arizona where

republican congressman jeff lake released this ad claiming his opponent, democrat richard carmonna has issues with anger, ethics and women. >> there was an angry pounding on the door in the middle of the night. i'm a single mom. i feared for my kids and for myself. it was richard carmonna and i was his boss. carmona is not who he seems. he has issues with anger, with ethics, and with women. >> nbc news senior political editor mark murray joins me to talk about this and other closely watched races. mark, good morning. >> good morning, chris. >> polls show this race to be neck and neck. carmona is ahead by four. they face off in their second debate tonight. i've never seen an ad quite like the one we just looked at. is there an indication that it's moving the needle. >> it's a brutal ad. sometimes these do move the needle particularly in a state like arizona who isn't seeing a whole lot of presidential ads.

voters don't know a lot about jeff lake and richard carmona. it could move the needle. i'm more interested in why lake is running this ad. it shows this is a jump ball race. >> in connecticut, mcmahon is meeting in a debate. there's a negative and expensive campaign in a senate race. joe biden was in connecticut supporting congressman chris murphy. how has linda mcmahon's money influenced the race. >> that can buy you a second chance. she lost in 2010 to richard bloom menthol. this time it has brought her into a tight race in connecticut. democrats are very happy that they're in the game in arizona. >> in montana, democratic senator john tester and denny

rayberg jousted last night where he tried to tie tester to the pre president's policy. they were talking about the influence of alcohol. >> this all comes down to president obama as we've seen the rayberg campaign try to tie that to tester. he's trying to go to his likability. he's more likeable than his opponent. this is a toss up race that tilts republican. all three races that we talked about are going to be close and must wins. >> mark, always good to have you on the program. thank you. >> that wraps up this hour of "jansing & co." i'm chris jansing. richard lui is in next. >> could it be the presidential rematch debate of the century? we know the president loves his b ball so we'll use some baseba basketball analogies.

we're taking stock of the ground game in two of the battleground states the president needs to win. we're talking about ohio and nevada. can the troops on the ground override romney's rise in the polls. and if president obama wins re-election, what will he owe the clintons? a fascinating look at what's being talked about behind the scenes. of any small business credit card! how does this thing work? oh, i like it! [ garth ] sven's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! woo-hoo!!! so that's ten security gators, right? put them on my spark card! why settle for less? testing hot tar... great businesses deserve the most rewards! [ male announcer ] the spark business card from capital one. choose unlimited rewards with 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day! what's in your wallet? here's your invoice.

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